


this love came back to me

by psikeval



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 05:06:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4693160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psikeval/pseuds/psikeval
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reunion, in the midst of all the war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this love came back to me

**Author's Note:**

  * For [aplethora](https://archiveofourown.org/users/aplethora/gifts).



There are too many bloody hills on the road to Caer Bronach, and too many rocks rubbed smooth by the lake, just waiting to turn Isabela’s ankle when she isn’t paying attention. It’s been a painfully long day, and an even longer walk back from those ruins overrun by demons, without a single drink to console her. This morning, their little group was intercepted by orders from Skyhold and split up; now Neria and Belinda are traveling toward the next fight, somewhere in Orlais, leaving Amund and Isabela to make the rest of the journey alone.

The Avvar’s not a bad sort, she supposes. Cheery and full of stories, keeps his hands where they ought to be. Not too big a man to take orders. It’s only — he isn’t one of _hers_ , none of the Inquisition’s agents are, and all their tales and squabbles and Neria’s not-quite-right vallaslin remind her of the people she left behind. One in particular, if Isabela’s feeling honest.

Maker’s balls, what she wouldn’t give to be drunk.

“See there, my hearty friend!” calls Amund, who’s left her alone for the last few hours out of pity, or perhaps exhaustion. He’s pointing ahead, to the looming walls of the keep, the huge bronzed bird in flight on the ramparts. “We’re almost where we need to be.”

“Not a moment too soon.”

He shifts the giant fur draped over his head to peer down at her. “It isn’t another of those—what do you call them. Wedges up your bits? Perhaps we can find you better undergarments.”

“Oh, trust me,” she purrs, close enough to a real bed to feel almost herself, “It’s all a part of my charm.”

“Whatever you say,” Amund agrees easily. Considering he’s been stabbing the scabbard of his greatsword into the ground like a walking stick for the past few miles, it’s possible they’re both too tired to argue.

The scouts on the ramparts call down to have the doors opened, and they pass into the keep without incident, aside from Amund getting halfway up the first flight of stairs before he just lets his sword drop and slide down into the mud. “You stay there,” he tells it, heedless of the nearest merchant’s yelp of alarm. The main camp is waiting for them, far too many interminable steps away.

“Admiral,” says Charter, always Isabela’s favorite for just that reason. “Visitor for you.”

“For me? Who?”

“Couldn’t say.”

“Oh?” She adjusts her hat, the feather of which has been drooping along with their spirits.

“Nightingale cleared ’em to be here, is all I know.”

This seems patently false—Isabela doesn’t think anyone can get near Crestwood without Leliana’s agents finding out who they are and what they like to eat for supper, but she’s not in any mood to go poking around in their precious pile of secrets.

“Can it wait ’til I’ve had a bath?”

“Might not need to.” When Isabela only stares, unsure what she means and too bloody exhausted to hope, Charter’s mouth tilts into a smirk and she relents. “Just upstairs, first door on the left.”

Sore feet be damned, Isabela runs.

“Merrill,” she breathes, when she’s found the proper door, when Merrill is right there in front of her, bright-eyed and beaming, brushing hair from her eyes—

“There you are!” she says brightly, only the slightest quaver in her voice, just before Isabela pounces and presses her up onto a desk, kissing her, touching her arms and legs and the backs of her knees and those precious ankles, silky half-braided hair and the line of Merrill’s spine, flexing under Isabela’s fingertips. Her clothes are worn, and a few new scars and callouses mark her skin, but Merrill’s _mouth_ — oh, her mouth tastes just the same.

“You’re here,” says Isabela, when any dream would have long since faded. She settles her hands on Merrill’s hips to steady herself, to make herself believe. “How are you here?”

Merrill has draped her arms possessively around Isabela’s neck, hands linked, and she kisses Isabela once more before speaking. “I sent a message to that woman we met once in Kirkwall. Sister Nightingale? I suppose that’s not really her name, but I like it. She wrote back and said she wasn’t sure where you were just yet, but she’d let me know. Only it was in some terribly confusing code, so I didn’t understand what she said, but I kept it anyway, just in case. One of the guardsman told me what it said. Then I wrote to that very angry templar we used to see in the Gallows, but he seems a bit nicer now. It took him a while, but then he said you were somewhere south where it’s very cold, going after a dragon. Did you fight a dragon without me?”

“It was dreadful, I promise. I’m used to all the dragonlings falling asleep before they get close, which makes things easier. Instead I had some strange little man playing music at me.”

“Was it magical music?”

“Technically, yes,” she allows. “But the _point_ is, he wasn’t half the mage you are.”

“He better have kept you safe, anyhow,” says Merrill, frowning as she glances over Isabela’s body, as if she’s looking for a secret missing limb. “After that, I wrote again, and got letters from people with names that didn’t sound real at all, even for humans, and finally they said you’d be coming back to Crestwood eventually, so I made arrangements in the alienage and got passage on a ship across the Waking Sea, and a few nice soldiers brought me here.”

Isabela whistles, low and appreciative, lifting one hand to run her thumb along Merrill’s ear to see if it still makes her blush. (It does.) “All that? How long did it take you?”

“Oh. I might have gotten an early start,” she demurs, the blush only deepening.

“How early?”

Merrill squints adorably. “The day you left?”

And it feels—it feels like saying goodbye on the docks, like every day since spooling out golden bright between them, something almost shared now, knowing that Merrill was always coming to find her. That every night she spent alone, Merrill was reaching out to catch her, from across the Waking Sea.

“Oh, kitten.” The words are too soft, too much of her heart laid open in their cadence, and she smiles as distraction from the ridiculous tears in her eyes.

Of course it doesn’t work, but Merrill hugs her tight, lets Isabela duck her face into the soft green scarf around her neck until she’s gotten hold of herself again.

 

\--

 

She takes a bath after all, because one of Charter’s people comes and fills the tub with hot water, and because Isabela feels absolutely rank from all the traveling; she could swear there are still spiderwebs in her boots somehow. As soon as the door is shut and Isabela’s clothes are on the floor, she practically melts into the water.

Merrill combs and washes her hair, fingers gently massaging her scalp and working out the last stubborn tangles, and for all that she’s naked and they’ve not seen each other in ages and reunion sex would really be the thing, Isabela nearly falls asleep, it’s so gorgeously relaxing.

“I missed you very much,” says Merrill, trailing her hands idly over Isabela’s shoulders. “I suppose that’s obvious, but it still seems worth saying.”

She stubbornly swallows the lump in her throat and wonders when everything under the sun started making her so damned _weepy_. “Mm. I could listen to you talk all day.”

“I might run out of things to say, after an hour or two. Unless you’d like to hear about elven history. Then I could tell you all about Arlathan and the Dales. I’d probably need a glass of water, after a while,” she adds, as if she’s taking it seriously, as if every soft lilting word isn’t being strung together for Isabela’s benefit. She has always been so terribly kind.

“It’s been awful without you,” she admits. “Not properly awful, I suppose, but awful for _me_.”

“Better now?” asks Merrill, tentative, so that Isabela can’t help reaching back to catch her hand and tangle their fingers together, brushing her knuckles over the familiar scar on Merrill’s palm.

“ _Much_ better now, kitten.”

 

\--

 

They get hold of a bottle of wine and watch the sun go down from the hillside. The air is cool and damp, softly scented with embrium, and Merrill takes a long steady swallow straight from the bottle, just like Isabela taught her, the line of her throat mesmerizing. Come to think of it, Isabela isn’t sure she’s looked at the sunset once. Why would she? Merrill is here.

Merrill is here.

Giddy and overcome, she ducks in to kiss Merrill’s cheek, but Merrill has always been quick; she catches Isabela by the hair before she can lean back again, combs her fingers through and holds, kissing her slowly.

There are laces along the sides of Merrill’s robes, just begging to be undone, so Isabela takes the wine bottle with one hand and loosens the first knot with the other. It’s tricky, going at it one-handed and blind, but she’s nothing if not good at this sort of thing.

“Hope you don’t mind being debauched out in the open.”

Merrill giggles the way she always does when she’s thinking something filthy, and it never fails to make Isabela feel warm all over. “I’m Dalish, remember?”

“That’s right.” She’s uncovered Merrill’s thigh by now and spreads her hand along the bare skin, nuzzling against her neck. “You could probably teach me a few things.”

“Mostly what you’d expect, really. Keeping away from burrs, that sort of thing. And watch out for nesting birds, they can be awfully nasty.”

“No trees around,” she murmurs into Merrill’s jaw, tugging the last laces free. “Maybe we’re safe.”

“Oh, I hope so.”

As it turns out, the sun sets just as well without them.

 

\--


End file.
